The Beauty of The Colossal Pair, Thebes The work of art I chose was “The Colossal Pair, Thebes” by Frank Dillon. I chose this particular piece because I have a fascination with Egyptian art and culture. The painting was appealing and the color of it was soothing and beckoning to me. Many of the painting in Saint Louis Art Museum were beautiful and captivating; however, the painting I chose was different and stood out among the rest. “The Colossal Pair, Thebes” was painted during the Romanticism Period in 1856. Frank Dillon was the artist and the painting was based on the statues of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his wife which are on the plain of present day Luxor (but was Thebes at the time) in Egypt. The painting is a good representation of…show more content… The center of interest in this work was the star in the distance hanging in the sky. The movement of the painting is guided by the disappearing sunset that makes the majestically faded statues stand out with it leading to the carcass of the camel near the front right of the painting. This guides to the pool of water beside the camel bones and all of this is contrasted with the beautiful burnt orange color of the sunset. The mountainous background ties in with the statues culminating into a breathtaking painting capturing the essence of the landscape of the city of Thebes. Balance is created with the two statues, the varying orange of the sunset with the remainder of the bluish to purplish sky, and the zig zagging clouds in the left portion of the painting with the sunset colored clouds in the right back portion. It is difficult to choose between the formal and informal balance of the piece. While you may argue that the two statues do in fact create formal balance, the sunset and clouds do not quite make the painting balanced in a formal sense; by solely basing the decision on the clouds, it would be